Syrian government vows bloody retaliation against town where police were killed

Syrian government claims it is launching 'delicate' operation to avoid bloodshed

Anti-government forces said to have planted booby traps around town to catch security troops

State television reports 120 police and security forces dead after armed struggle with activists

Fears are mounting in Syria that there will be a major military attack in a northern region where clashes between rebels and government troops left 120 members of security forces dead.

The government has vowed to respond 'decisively' to the violence in Jisr al-Shughour, triggering fears of an even more brutal crackdown by a regime known for ruthlessly crushing dissent.

One activist said thousands elite Syrian troops and tanks were heading to town of around 50,000 people, near the border with Turkey, ahead of a possible attack.

Desperate struggle: Israeli troops opened fire on protesters from Syria who stormed a ceasefire line in the occupied Golan Heights

Conflict: Syrian state television has reported that 120 police and security forces have been killed by armed activists. The incident follows bloodshed on Sunday when Palestinian protestors clashed with the Israeli army at Golan Heights (pictured)

Intervention: The Syrian government is said to be sending troops into the town following the deaths. This image was taken during a separate incident in Golan Heights

Mustafa Osso, a human rights worker in the country, said it was one of the biggest military deployments since the 11-week uprising began.

He said many of the troops were from the army's 4th Division, which is commanded by President Assad's younger brother, Maher.

Al-Watan, a pro-government newspaper in Syria, said the Syrian army was
launching a 'very delicate' operation designed to avoid casualties in
Jisr al-Shughour.

Al-Watan said some people were being held captive by armed groups that
control some areas in Jisr al-Shughour and a large area of Idlib. It
said gunmen had set up boobytraps and ambushes in small villages to
thwart security reinforcements, and were also sheltering in forests and
caves.

Syria is determined to crush an
uprising against President Bashar Assad. Human rights group say more
than 1,300 have been killed since the revolt began in mid-March.

It is alleged that 120 members of Syria's police and security forces were killed after they clashed with activists.

Reports on Syrian state television said armed groups had set government buildings on fire in the north western town of Jisr al-Shughour.

Massacre: Amateur video image posted on the internet shows a Syrian army soldier and a policeman lying on the ground apparently dead from gunshot wounds in Jisr al-Shughour

It
also said activists had stolen five tonnes of dynamite and fired at
civilians and security using machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

However the reports from protesters gave a conflicting picture of events to the officially-sanctioned statements.

The head of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman, said 27 civilians and eight security agents were killed in Jisr al-Shughour as security forces targetted demonstrators.

State television said the policemen were killed by 'armed gangs' but rights activists said there had been a mutiny in the northwest Syria town where security forces had been carrying out operations for three days.

Foreign journalists are barred from travelling around the country, making it difficult to report on the unrest or verify different accounts.

The bloodshed comes after about 20 pro-Palestinian demonstrators were killed and 325 injured on Sunday when Israeli forces opened fire on
them as they crossed the border from Syria into occupied territories.

One report on state television about this latest incident said: 'The security forces have managed to end a blockade of one of the neighbourhoods that was seized by the gunmen for a while and are now battling them to end the blockade of the other neighbourhoods.

'The gunmen mutilated some of the bodies and threw some into the river. The people in Jisr al-Shughour are urging the army to intervene speedily.'

Bloodshed: Mourners carry the coffin of a Palestinian protester who was killed when Israeli soldiers opened fire on Syria's border in a separate incident on Sunday

Uprising: Thousands of people pay tribute to those shot dead on the Syrian border on Sunday. Syria is the latest Arab country to experience a revolt

Interior Minister Mohammad Ibrahim
al-Shaar said authorities would respond firmly to armed attacks while
Information Minister Adnan Mahmoud said army units - which had so far
stayed out of the town - 'will carry out their national duty to restore
security'.

Opposition
activists earlier said a security operation had been under way in the
town since Saturday in which they said at least 37 residents and 10
police had been killed.

Authorities
have prevented most international media from operating in Syria, making
it impossible to verify accounts of the violence from activists and
officials.

Protests against
President Bashar al-Assad have grown despite reform gestures and a
continuing crackdown that has killed at least 1,100 people since the
uprising broke out in mid-March.

Residents said the wave of killings in Jisr al-Shughour erupted on Saturday when snipers on the roof of the main post office fired at a funeral for six protesters killed during a demonstration a day earlier.

Angry mourners set fire to the post office after the shooting, said one Jisr al-Shughour resident, a history teacher who gave his name only as Ahmad. State television said eight security members were killed when armed gunmen attacked the post office building.

It said at least 20 security members were killed in an ambush by 'armed gangs', and 82 were killed in an attack on a security post. It said the overall death toll for security forces was over 120.

A rebellion in Jisr al-Shughour in
1980 against President Hafez al-Assad, Bashar's father, was brutally
crushed with scores of deaths.

Stand off: Israeli soldiers on top of a tank near the border between Syria and the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, a day after deadly clashes there

A town of 50,000 people, it lies on a
road between the coastal city of Latakia and Syria's second city of
Aleppo, which have seen little protests against Assad so far. The town
has a Sunni Muslim majority but activists said there are Alawite and
Christian villages in the area.

Rights campaigners say some deaths of
soldiers or police during the uprising have been the result of the
killing of security forces trying to defect or refusing to obey orders.

One activist, who wanted to remain anonymous, said: 'The story of forces defecting is not true.

'The
(police and security members) were killed by gunmen during the
operation, they came under fire. Some people in some areas have taken up
arms.

'The situation is grave, what is happening is considered an armed rebellion. I oppose violence from whatever side it came from.'

Western powers have intensified their condemnation of Assad as the death toll has grown.

Syrian security forces killed at least 70 protesters on Friday in one of the bloodiest days since the revolt began.

The United States, the European Union and Australia have all imposed sanctions on Syria.

'BRUTAL TREATMENT OF PROTESTERS'

Jisr al-Shughour, about 12 miles from
the Turkish border, has been the latest focus of Syria's military,
whose nationwide crackdown on the revolt has left more than 1,200
Syrians dead, activists say.

The town was a stronghold of the
country's banned Muslim Brotherhood in the 1980s. Human rights groups
said at least 42 civilians have been killed there since Saturday.

Syria's government has a history of
violent retaliation against dissent, including a three-week bombing
campaign against the city of Hama that crushed an uprising there in
1982.

Jisr al-Shughour itself came under
government shelling in 1980, when it was a stronghold of the banned
Muslim Brotherhood, with a reported 70 people killed.

Amnesty International criticized
Syria's 'brutal treatment of protesters' and called on the UN Security
Council to condemn the killings and refer Syria to the International
Criminal Court.

Phillip Luther, Amnesty's deputy
director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement:
'Those responsible for the brutal crackdown of pro-reform protesters
must no longer be allowed to get away with murder.'